Sustaining Nature, Supporting Health
The Stanford Center for Human and Planetary Health advances solutions that improve both health and sustainability.
For too long, we have treated nature as an inexhaustible resource. As a result, humanity faces a health crisis of planetary dimensions. Unsustainable food systems, global warming, natural disasters, pollution, and biodiversity loss are impacting our lives and the natural systems that we depend on. Those least responsible for these crises are hit worst and first.
Stanford’s Center for Human and Planetary Health is tackling these threats by seeking solutions that sustain nature and support human health.
Bringing together environmental science, medicine, public health, law, and other disciplines, the Center is driving breakthroughs that change policy and business practices, and is preparing the next generation of leaders to accelerate this critical work.
Read more about our work and impact in this Fact Sheet.
Featured News
The new interdisciplinary hub seeks to address the interconnected challenges of health and environmental sustainability.
Stanford students are helping rural energy non-governmental organizations put health at the center of energy decisions – replacing fossil fuels with more sustainable options.
HPH Faculty Director Steve Luby advances new, low-cost technologies to reduce air pollution and its health impacts in Bangladesh.
HPH by the Numbers
Average # of Stanford research projects on HPH topics since 2021 (per year)
Total # of Stanford publications on HPH topics since 2021
Average # of HPH courses offered since 2021 (per year)
HPH postdoctoral fellows since 2020
HPH early career research grants since 2022
HPH seed grants to interdisciplinary research teams since 2017
Explore our Focus Areas
The Center for Human and Planetary Health aims to support all research, education, and impact at Stanford that connects human health with the environment. We have identified four main themes where this work typically happens, with additional areas continually emerging.
Climate and Health
Promoting the health of vulnerable populations by exploring climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions, addressing issues that arise from extreme weather, wildfires, natural disasters, extreme heat, eco-anxiety, displacement, and other climate-related impacts.
Image credit: Moniruzzaman Sazal / Climate Visuals Countdown
Pollution and Health
Understanding and reducing the harm from pollution on the health of humans and the environment by redesigning business models and processes to reduce air, ocean, and land pollution, support health, and build more resilient and equitable economies.
Image credit: Abir Abdullah / Climate Visuals Countdown
Disease Ecology in a Changing World
Investigating the ecological, environmental and socioeconomic determinants of diseases transmitted through the environment, projecting their future distributions under scenarios of climate change, and developing ecological solutions to improve human health and protect the health of the environment that underpins it.
Image credit: Anthony Ochieng / Climate Visuals Countdown
Food Systems, Health and the Environment
Generating knowledge to develop a food system that provides healthy affordable human nutrition while supporting thriving biodiverse terrestrial and aquatic environments, and reduces carbon emissions from the agricultural sector.
Image credit: Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images/Images of Empowerment
The Center for Human and Planetary Health contributes to 12 of the Sustainable Development Goals. Read more here:
Recent News
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Researchers tested a low-cost, low-tech intervention to reduce pollution from brick kilns in Bangladesh. Stanford co-authors discuss insights from the study about scaling clean technologies in informal and unregulated industries.
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HPH Faculty Director Steve Luby advances new, low-cost technologies to reduce air pollution and its health impacts in Bangladesh.
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Stanford students are helping rural energy non-governmental organizations put health at the center of energy decisions – replacing fossil fuels with more sustainable options.
